Is This Cliche Or Am I Just A Prick?

Let me start this by saying that if you can give anything for the Tsunami relief effort, I definitely think you should.

I had to put that before I write this because there are some people out there who are a little over-sensitive about this kinda stuff. Even if it is just merely for discussion. I do believe we should help, I donated myself, but this bit of writing may have given the message that I don’t think we should…. That’s not the case.

It seems everytime that we have a huge happening like the one that has just happened in South East Asis a few weeks ago, we kinda go screwy. It happened for September 11 and numerous other events as well. I’m talking about these benefit concerts/games/events to raise money for the relief efforts.

It might just be me but it’s starting to seem a little bit cliche. My main point is about the big concert style telethons they always have where they get a bunch of the top musicians in the world together and have them perform while we all phone in to pledge our money.

Are we really that shallow of a society that we won’t donate if we aren’t entertained first? I don’t think so. I think that a large portion of the population is willing to do whatever little they can to help out without these things. They seem to strike me more as a PR opportunity for the celebrities themselves. To me, I think that anyone out there who was going to donate a small bit to the efforts was going to do it anyway. Without any kind of inspiration from Britney Spears. It strikes me that these are more a chance for a bunch of people with way more money to stand up in front of the world and tell us to donate.

I don’t know about you but I’d say that maybe 1 million of the 10 you made last year on your album is a more helpful contribution than one night of your singing. I’m not saying that none are donating because lots of them have been on the news making very generous donations. In some cases donating more than other countries in the surrounding area to the tragedy.

If it is truly PR that you want. Donate a sum of money, any sum is something, and then get your PR director on the phone to all the papers and TV stations to tell what you’ve donated. That’s fine. At least that is a contribution to the effort, right?

I saw a piece on CNN that talked about how many of these artists do these shows and then don’t donate. Their arguement being that was their donation. We saw them on TV singing and performing so we just assume they’re on board with us but we don’t know if they’ve ever put in a penny. The people with no clean water or food over there don’t have a tv to watch you anyway…. maybe you could spare a couple bucks for them. I’m sure they’d prefer that.

I’m not saying you need to give away 10 and 15 million as some have…. but if the general public can spare 50 bucks, surely you can. I don’t necessarily hold them to a higher standard that they should give more than us, or any at all for that matter, but if you are going to be on the support wagon, you could throw in a few bucks.

Certain things don’t bother me as much. Like the sporting events that are giving half the proceeds from a certain regular season game to the effort. That even was going to happen anyway and someone just decided that all the money from the popcorn sold at the game would go to the effort. That’s fine. If Christina wants to just give half the concession money from an already scheduled concert in to the pot, that seems fine to me. But having these huge benefits with 10 or 12 multi-millionaires on stage telling us to give money doesn’t seem quite right to me. I don’t think there’s enough people in the world saying “I will only donate if Saveage Garden tells me to.” We’re a better society than that. If people feel it is a just cause and have the money, they’ll donate. If they don’t think it’s a worthy cause or can’t afford to give up anything, then that’s fine too.

Right now the ratio of money donated by individuals to that by the governments is something like $4/$1. That’s great. We’re all generous people. but I just think we’re all generous enough without being herded up like sheep by the people we see on TV everyday.

That might be a jaded view, but I personally think it’s a positive one. People deep down are good. I don’t think they need to be given any more reason to donate than that of the original tragedy and the thought that maybe they can help someone out.

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